Getting the Mail through the Blockade

[John Hartwell]

An example of the extreme measures sometimes needed to get mail from the CSA through to the outside world:

The letter below was originally sent from Georgia enclosed in an outer envelope which was addressed to the care of a forwarding agent in Nassau, Bahamas. It was sent from Wilmington, NC on the blockade-runner Will of the Wisp. The forwarding agent discarded the outer envelope, and posted at the Nassau post office prepaying the 1 shilling 3 pence rate for carriage by British mails to France.​

The postal markings (some of them on the reverse side, not shown) tell its story:
June 1864 Louisiana Creole, Georgia to Wilmington by CSA mails
28 June to Nassau by blockade-runner Will of the Wisp
4 July to New York per British Mail steamer Corsica
13 July to England per Cunard Line Arabia
25 July across the Channel to Calais, France
26 July arrived by rail at Cannes, France

The above is a brief extract from a very informative account of Tales from the Blockade, assembled by Stephen C. Walske as an exhibit at the 2015 London Europhilex Stamp Exhibition. He discusses many blockade runners and their part in carrying the mails.

Confederate Philately expert Trish Kaufman has an extensive listing of Confederate stamp and postal history exhibits available online as pdfs. There is a great deal of interesting material there.

 

[Tom Elmore]

John H. Walters, a native of the Netherlands, in Capt. Grandy's artillery battery in the Army of Northern Virginia, received a letter from Holland on September 14, 1864 that was dated June 4, 1864. (Norfolk Blues, diary of John H. Walters)

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Modern mail sometimes takes longer! My wife just got a returned-undeliverable letter that she sent 14 months ago...

 

[unionblue]

Modern mail sometimes takes longer! My wife just got a returned-undeliverable letter that she sent 14 months ago...

Mark,

Tell your wife, your welcome.

Sincerely,
Unionblue, former US Postal Service employee.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

lol!

Actually, what was even weirder about it was that it was something my wife hadn't sent... someone else put her name and address as the return address. So she was really confused when she got it. (The story behind it turned out to be that it was sent by a committee member of an organization of which my wife's the acting president, though we're still not quite certain why the member put my wife's info on it...)

 

[mobile_96]

Biggest question would be, how long did 'regular' service between the 2 sections continue. I get the impression that mail was delivered via 'truce' during much of the war. POW mail most certainly, as by the numbers of letters sent to and from Point Lookout to southern states.

 

[Waterloo50]

Mark,

Tell your wife, your welcome.

Sincerely,
Unionblue, former US Postal Service employee.

Awkward moment....

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

lol! No, I'm sure UB knows the drill.

 

[John Hartwell]

Biggest question would be, how long did 'regular' service between the 2 sections continue. I get the impression that mail was delivered via 'truce' during much of the war. POW mail most certainly, as by the numbers of letters sent to and from Point Lookout to southern states.

Walske also has a presentation on "Special Postal Routes Across the Lines during the ACW." He goes into quite a lot of well-documented detail (128 pages worth).

 

[USS ALASKA]

Last 47 pages about the ACW...

North American Blockade Run Mail, 1775-1865

Background: The early history of the United States is marked by three defensive wars: two with Great Britain and the Civil War. These wars precipitated four naval blockades of some portion of the North American coastline.
• During the Revolutionary War (1775-83), the British navy maintained an undeclared commercial blockade of the rebel colonies along the Atlantic coast. This blockade closed American ports to all commerce, including cargos carried in neutral ships.
• British forces occupied the ports of Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston and Savannah at various times during the Revolutionary War. American privateers maintained an effective blockade of those British-held enclaves from 1775 to 1783.
• Great Britain was again the antagonist during the War of 1812, and maintained a formal commercial blockade (1813-15) that rolled out in stages along the Atlantic coast.
• Finally, the secession of southern states at the outset of the American Civil War precipitated a Federal commercial blockade of the southern coasts from 1861 to 1865.

https://siegelauctions.com/exhibits/Walske_Blockade.pdf

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

Civil War Blockade Run Mail, 1861-65

Civil War Blockade Papers | Naval War - At Sea & Along Inland Waterways

I've been slowly collecting papers on the Blockade - thought I would post them here for reference and discussion... A Hard Blockade: The Union Navy and the Foundation of Union Hard War Policy Blakeney K. Hill Texas Christian University "Any discussion of the Union blockade during the Civil...

civilwartalk.com

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Lampasas Bill]

Absalom Grimes, Confederate Mail Runner is a fascinating personal account of a former Mississippi River pilot who spent the war smuggling mail through Union lines to the members of the Missouri Brigade. He eventually developed a ring of young ladies to carry the mail by charming their way past federal officials. Grimes initially served in the Missouri State Guard. Later, he was captured and imprisoned several times but was able to escape and continue his mail running. Well worth reading about a little-know aspect of the war. It is available on Internet Archive. Highly recommended.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

An example of the extreme measures sometimes needed to get mail from the CSA through to the outside world:

The letter below was originally sent from Georgia enclosed in an outer envelope which was addressed to the care of a forwarding agent in Nassau, Bahamas. It was sent from Wilmington, NC on the blockade-runner Will of the Wisp. The forwarding agent discarded the outer envelope, and posted at the Nassau post office prepaying the 1 shilling 3 pence rate for carriage by British mails to France.​

The postal markings (some of them on the reverse side, not shown) tell its story:
June 1864 Louisiana Creole, Georgia to Wilmington by CSA mails
28 June to Nassau by blockade-runner Will of the Wisp
4 July to New York per British Mail steamer Corsica
13 July to England per Cunard Line Arabia
25 July across the Channel to Calais, France
26 July arrived by rail at Cannes, France

View attachment 99025​

The above is a brief extract from a very informative account of Tales from the Blockade, assembled by Stephen C. Walske as an exhibit at the 2015 London Europhilex Stamp Exhibition. He discusses many blockade runners and their part in carrying the mails.

Confederate Philately expert Trish Kaufman has an extensive listing of Confederate stamp and postal history exhibits available online as pdfs. There is a great deal of interesting material there.

Interesting indeed. I have read very little about getting mail OUT of the Confederacy.

 

[USS ALASKA]

The American Civil War: The Anaconda Plan
Daniel Ryterband

Received for hosting with the permission of the owner
September 2022
Civil War Philatelic Society, Inc.

https://www.civilwarphilatelicsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Res-Exh-Ryterband-The-Anaconda-Plan.pdf

Please use above link

Please also see...

Ryterband wins Champion of Champions award for his Civil War Mail exhibit | Relic Hunting & Collecting

(There is a link to photos of his fabulous exhibit within the article!) Daniel J. Ryterband’s exhibit “A Country Divided: Effects of the American Civil War on the Mails” won the top exhibit prize in the Champion of Champions competition at the 2021 Great American Stamp Show in Rosemont, Ill. By...

civilwartalk.com

A Country Divided: Effects of the American Civil War on the Mails | Civil War on the Internet

I just uploaded an award-winning exhibit of US and CSA postal history put together by Dan Ryterband on my website here: https://www.rfrajola.com/DRCW/DRCW.htm I thought it might be of interest.

civilwartalk.com

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

Confederate Prize Court Mail
PATRICIA A. KAUFMANN

In the April 2018 American Philatelist, my article "Civil War Prize Court Mail" described the United States Prize Court system as it pertained to Confederate vessels captured when they attempted to run the Union blockade of Southern ports, and how to recognize such mail. The principal district courts dealing with Union prize cases were located in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, Baltimore, Washington, Key West and New Orleans. The latter two cities, although in the South, were occupied by the U.S. for most of the war. Only mail from New York City and Philadelphia Prize Courts has been identified by postal historians. Postal history students should be vigilant for such mail from other ports. It was not until 1997, in the article "Prize Court Covers" by the late Joseph T. Holleman in The Confederate Philatelist, that collectors came to understand the evidentiary docketings on what usually appear to be otherwise simple Confederate covers, although there are a some rare and unusual mixed frankings recorded.

https://www.trishkaufmann.com/masonry/resources/final-layout-csa-prize-court.pdf

Unsure of copyright, please use above link.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

Civil War Blockade of the Southern Coasts
Steven C. Walske
February 2020
Civil War Philatelic Society, Inc.

There were eleven different routes between these seven CSA ports and the five foreign ports (Nassau, Bermuda, Havana, Halifax and Matamoros) that acted as the staging points for supplies and mail. This exhibit shows mail carried on all eleven blockade run routes. An incoming letter to the CSA was typically sent inside of another envelope to one of the foreign staging ports for transfer to a blockade runner, and then posted in the CSA arrival port, where inland postage and a two cents ship fee were assessed. No West Indies postal markings appear on incoming mail. Outgoing letters were typically forwarded under cover to a blockade runner in a Confederate port, and did not enter the mails until they reached the blockade runner's destination port. With rare exceptions, CSA postal markings do not appear on outgoing mail.

https://www.civilwarphilatelicsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Res-Exh-Walske-Civil-War-Blockade.pdf

Please use above link.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

"...Care of Spanish Consul, Charleston S.C." Spain had a consulate in Charleston? Humm...

Civil War Prize Court Evidence
Patricia A. Kaufmann

The cover shown in Figure 1 appears to be a simple stampless cover from Anderson C. H., S.C. dated Aug 26 [1861]. The date is easily determined by the 5-cent Confederate postage rate that appears in manuscript next to a straightline PAID marking to the left of the postmark. The only month of August with this rate was the first year of the war, 1861. The cover is addressed to "Emilio Puig, Esqr., Care of Spanish Consul, Charleston S.C." What makes this cover out of the ordinary is the magenta manuscript court docket of "A No 7 HHE." Henry H. Elliot was the New York prize court commissioner who initialed the envelope as evidence in the case. This was one of the early prize court cases of the Civil War.

https://www.trishkaufmann.com/files/1QLaPostaCW4.pdf

Please use above link.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA